"The game quickly worked its way over the Allegheny mountains and across the western prairies until soon it obtained a permanent footing in every town and village in the land. It achieved its most lasting popularity before radio and paved roads destroyed the isolation of the American small town. In those days baseball was the most popular game at recess at the little frame country school and also the two-story brick town school. It also furnished a clean and exciting Sunday afternoon recreation for hundreds of active young men who had no other outlet for muscular energy, and also for thousands of spectators who proudly followed their nines to the small plank grandstands at the edge of the village or in the vacant lots of the cities, and, while supporting them zealously and vociferously, acquired for themselves health and pleasure and an escape from the routine boredom of their own lives that was an invaluable tonic as they faced their jobs the following Monday morning."